Aussie couple who married shocked to find name change on ticket could cost thousands

A couple who recently married were shocked to find that changing a name on their flight ticket would incur thousands of dollars.

Brendan and Julia Widdowson booked their dream European honeymoon last year, ahead of their wedding this February. Their trip to Croatia, Montenegro and Albania is planned for next month, but when the couple told Virgin about Julia’s change of surname, they were informed that the initial charge to re-book their trip would more than $8,500.

Brendan, a partnerships manager at a loan provider, said “We thought it would be a simple process, and we may incur a small fee, to update the name on the ticket.”

However, when the couple contacted Virgin’s customer service team, they were told that, by law the IATA only allows three letters of a name to be changed. They had also booked the initial flight through a Velocity redemption booking and a codeshare seat on Singapore Airlines. As there were no further redemption seats available, the only option would be to cancel the initial reservation and re-book their flights. Unfortunately the flight rate had increased dramatically since their initial booking.

Facebook/Brendan Widdowson

Brandon took to Facebook to vent his anger about the situation, writing “We were also told that the availability of flights could not be guaranteed and that if we were to re-book, we would need to do so at the current rate — 1,321,700 velocity points or $8,590. Futhermore, we were told that we would incur a cancellation fee.”

The couple initially looked at other options to save money, including flying separately several days apart.

“It is outrageous and seems completely unreasonable that it is on us to cancel our ticket and re-book a flight because Virgin’s system cannot handle a simple name change,” he wrote on Facebook.

Following the complaint, the couple have since been rebooked by Virgin on another flight with in Business Class Etihad, and have been charged $616.50 by the airline in taxes.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson told 9Honey: "Due to security reasons, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) does not permit any airline to change names on issued international airline tickets. Therefore...an airline must cancel and rebook a ticket. If you are cancelling and rebooking a frequent flyer redemption ticket close to the date of travel, it is often the case that a redemption seat will not be available and therefore ill incur a greater cost to rebook."